


My Greatest Fear: Eight Mourning Women

by loosenoodlepoodledoodle



Series: Gross Overreactions [1]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Horror, Mentions of Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 12:50:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosenoodlepoodledoodle/pseuds/loosenoodlepoodledoodle
Summary: Something unthinkable has happened, and Twice must come to grips with it.





	My Greatest Fear: Eight Mourning Women

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not the sort of person to include trigger warnings, mainly because they spoil the story. But if you are the sort of person who needs trigger warnings, perhaps you should reconsider reading this. Because if I did believe in trigger warnings, this tale would have a huge one.

Even with the windows open, and the first cool breeze of autumn wafting in, the dormitory still smelled terrible. Twelve hours after it happened, the faint stench of smoldering charcoal continued to assail their senses.

Everyone sat together in the living room, looking stunned. The company had put them up in a hotel last night; they had only just now returned. The clothes they were wearing had been purchased by their managers in a hurry. There had been no possibility of packing for an overnight stay.

At last, Jihyo could stand it no longer.

“We gotta talk about what happened.”

Nayeon turned to her, miserably. “Do we really?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“What could we possibly say?” said Nayeon. “What’s done is done.”

Dahyeon, looking up from the tears on her sleeve, scolded her in disbelief.

“How can you be so cold?”

“I’m not! It’s just…I’m just being real.”

“This _feels_ so unreal,” muttered Momo.

“Yeah,” said Sana. “I still can’t believe she did it.”

“Neither can I,” said Jeongyeon.

“Me, too,” said Chaeyeong.

“I can believe it.”

Everyone stared at Tzuyu.

“I mean, everything she did makes sense now. Like, there were warning signs we missed.”

“What?” said Nayeon, aghast. “No way. We couldn’t possibly have seen this coming.”

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Then say what you mean! And don’t be so cruel.”

Tzuyu looked like she was going to object, but then she just said, “I’m sorry.”

Silence returned, reigning over them. A gentle gust of wind came, caressing their faces, but it also brought a chill.

Jeongyeon broke the silence.

“Why was she home alone last night?”

“You know why.”

Jeongyeon looked at Nayeon.

“But, isn’t that pretty weird? To leave her here alone like that?”

Nayeon shook her head. “What about all those times she stayed here and we went to the café? Huh? Were we putting her at risk then, too? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, I’m not! Besides, those were our days off. It wasn’t like she was being left out of anything special then. But to stay here while we were performing? It must have been rough.”

Nayeon scoffed. “Rough? Like it was just another rainy day?”

“Maybe it was for her. Maybe it was always a rainy day.”

Silence returned, and then: “Okay, so she was depressed. What were we supposed to do?”

Jihyo answered Nayeon this time. “Nothing. There’s nothing we could’ve done. She hid it from us. She hid it from the doctors, too. They only diagnosed her with anxiety. Nothing about depression. Nothing like this…”

Momo interjected. “Why would she hide it from us?”

“I don’t know. I wish I knew. I wish we could ask her.”

“She probably didn’t want to bother us with it,” said Sana. “She probably thought it would hurt us if we knew.”

Nayeon responded. “And yet she hurt us infinitely more by what she did last night.”

No one spoke for a moment. Then Chaeyeong said, “She could’ve been in denial about it.”

“Yeah, she could have been a lot of things,” retorted Nayeon, “but that doesn’t matter now. All that matters is, why’d she do it?”

“Why are you being like this, Nayeon?” Sana’s voice quavered. “This isn’t like you!”

“What isn’t like me? I’m hurting inside, too, but not only that, I’m angry—"

“Enough, you two!” snapped Jihyo.

Nayeon was rendered breathless for a moment. She wasn’t the only one reacting strangely, but they could all see that something about it was gnawing at her.

After a while, Dahyeon spoke up. “It must have been a spur of the moment decision. I think this sort of thing usually is.”

“You mean like Gu Hara?” asked Tzuyu.

“Yeah. She might’ve gotten the idea from hearing about her.”

“Or Jonghyun.”

Everyone stirred uneasily at that name.

“You know, I think you’re right. Didn’t they both use charcoal or something? Mina did too.”

“Then doesn’t that mean she planned it out?” asked Nayeon.

“No,” said Jeongyeon, “because Hara did it when her boyfriend dumped her. She just went out and bought some and cooked it.”

“But Mina didn’t leave last night. She had to have it already.”

They all considered this, and Sana asked the question in their minds. “Then…why wasn’t there a note?”

Tzuyu offered, “Because she just didn’t write one.”

“Does that seem like Mina to you?”

“Well, trying to kill herself didn’t seem like Mina either, but here we all are.”

The silence this time was different. It was like the air itself had been wounded.

“I can’t believe you said that,” gasped Chaeyeong.

Tzuyu shrugged her shoulders apologetically, and after a moment put her hands over her face. Chaeyeong, no longer able to sit still, got up and walked to her bedroom, which she had shared with Tzuyu and Dahyeon.

The rest of them sat quietly. It would be Momo who started the conversation up again.

Something about Mina bothered her. “I thought she was getting better.”

“Me, too,” admitted Sana. She looked so forlorn.

Jeongyeon shifted uneasily in her seat. “I read somewhere that, um, depressed people can seem to improve, before they…”

But whatever was consuming Nayeon would not let up. “This again? She didn’t just feel better yesterday morning. She worked with us on the music video, the album cover. She was getting better over a long time.”

“Okay,” said Jihyo. “How do you explain what she did?”

“I can’t. Not really. But maybe she was in pain. A pain that we’ll probably never understand. Not unless we walked in her shoes.”

“But we could’ve helped her!” insisted Sana.

“Could we?” asked Tzuyu. “She didn’t think we could.”

“She didn’t know that!”

“Neither do we,” said Nayeon.

“W-what’s that?” asked Dahyeon.

Chaeyeong had returned to the living room. She ignored Dahyeon’s question, hiding the thing behind her back. Instead, she told them something else.

“Last night, after we got back, I hurried up here to see her. I wanted to know if she’d watched us on TV. I stepped off the elevator. All our pets were running around out in the hallway in a frenzy. It was so fucking weird…”

“Chaeyeong, you don’t have to say anything more—” interrupted Nayeon.

But Chaeyeong had to get it off her chest. “The electronic lock wasn’t a problem, but she’d closed the manual lock. I didn’t have a key for it, I had to find one of the staff. But I could smell the inside of the room seeping in from under the door.”

“Chaeyeong, please!” begged Nayeon.

“What? I have to explain. Why they didn’t find a note. It’s because they tossed your guys’ room, not ours. They didn’t touch anywhere else. And we only got back here just now. So we didn’t have a chance to look until now.”

“Chaeyeong,” asked Jihyo, tearfully, “what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, they didn’t find a note because they looked in the wrong place.”

She held up the envelope. Their faces fell.

“I found this under my pillow. I already looked in it, but I didn’t read any of them. I think there’s one for each of us.”

She handed them out. One by one, they began to read quietly.

Nayeon remarked, her voice nearly breaking, “This is so sweet…”

In each note, Mina had written how much she loved them, and what she admired about them the most. Nayeon, for not being shy, and not being afraid to make mistakes. Jihyo and Jeongyeon, for their caring, parental natures. Sana, for her affection. Dahyeon, for her humor and cute innocence. Momo, for her ditziness, and their friendly dance rivalry. Tzuyu, for being a kindred spirit: quiet, smart, and often misread. And finally Chaeyeong, for her optimism, her hidden shy side, her sole ability to always bring out Mina’s smile. For Chaeyeong, Mina left a longer message, one that she felt compelled to share directly with the others.

“She says here, ‘_I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt any of you. But the pain in my heart is just too great. Nothing I do seems to help, and only one thing remains to be done._

_ “‘I thought I was getting better. I truly did. But now I know the truth. I can’t be healed. And that means I can’t be part of Twice anymore. It’s this thought as much as any other that breaks me._

_ “‘I keep having this dream over and over. I’ve become obsessed with it. Of what would become of me without Twice. And I literally become nothing. A disembodied void, adrift in the senseless cosmos._

_ “‘That feeling has taken me over completely. Nothing helps. Or to be fair, being with you holds it at bay. At least until we are apart again. But I’m not strong enough. The thought of performing on stage, in front of this cruel world that hates me? It’s too much. Not even you can make me brave enough._

_ “‘I know people love me, too; most of all you, my sisters. But the light you bring drowns in the darkness. I’ve said before, that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. As I write this, I come to see that I was wrong. Hate is just another kind of indifference. I’m—no, we’re—being smothered by it, by a world that doesn’t care. And that terrifies me. Paralyzes me with fear. I can’t keep performing after realizing this, and I have no place in a world I can’t perform in._

_ “‘So, that’s why I made this decision. The pain is too much. Please forgive me, even though I know I don’t deserve it.”_

***

Chaeyeong continued to stand as the others digested what she had read.

“I don’t get it,” blurted out Nayeon.

“Neither do I,” said Momo.

“I sort of get it,” said Tzuyu, “but it sounds like she was trying to rationalize a decision she’d already made.”

“Yeah,” murmured Jihyo.

There was a knock at the door. It startled them, but it also brought them to rapt attention. All of their phones had been locked up last night, so the only way they could hear news is if someone physically came to their dormitory to share it.

Chaeyeong opened the front door. Outside stood Ryujin and Yeji, from their sibling group, Itzy. The two of them looked just as rough around the edges as Twice did. Chaeyeong realized that the rest of the company must be taking things pretty hard as well. Mina had been popular even as a trainee, after all. And hadn’t Park Jin-Yeong likened JYP Entertainment as to a family?

Ryujin hesitated, then told them, “They’re saying Mina’s awake, that you can see her if you wish. Do you want to go to the hospital?”

Ryujin thought she could feel the tension in the room release. They didn’t say yes; instead everyone but Chaeyeong leapt to their feet.

But Chaeyeong couldn’t help it: “Did she ask to see us?”

Ryujin shook her head. “I don’t know, they only told me to come get you.”

Yeji added, “But I overheard someone say that she’s really ashamed right now, she can barely speak.”

They all looked at each other earnestly. Whatever hard façade Nayeon had constructed came crashing down at that moment, washed away in her tears.

They left the dorm, and by the time they returned that evening, the smell was completely gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I had the basic idea for this a couple of months ago, and it terrified me. However, when I heard Mina was able to shoot the m/v for "Feel Special", I rejoiced and tabled this idea. Then I found out she was not well enough for any promotions, and the fear for her came roaring back. Thus, I was compelled to write this out. Yikes.
> 
> Nayeon is my bias, so I don't know why I made her the bad guy. It's just that when I was thinking this through, she's the only one I could think of having a reaction like that.
> 
> 2019/12/26: Given what happened in the time after I put this out, I feel compelled to make a statement. I wrote this before Sulli and Gu Hara's passing, and it really freaked me out when they died.


End file.
